The Significance of Audience - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Significance of Audience Analysis

Strategically Considering Your Target PopulaceSlide2

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Knowing your audience—their

beliefs, attitudes,

age, education level, job functions, language and culture—is the single most

important aspect

of developing your speech

.

Your audience is assembled for a very real

reason. They

want to hear what you have to

say

In public

speaking.

T

he

audience is the entire

reason you

are giving the speech; thus, the audience is the most important component of

speechmaking.Slide3

Cont……….

We analyze our audience because we want to discover information that will help create a

link between

the speaker and the audience

.

We call this link

identification. Aristotle loosely called

it

“

finding a common ground.” This isn’t a one-way process between the speaker and the audience

; rather

, it is a

two-way transactional process

.

When you ask an audience to listen to your

ideas, you

are asking them to come partway into your experience as a speaker.

And

, in return, it is

your obligation

to go partway into their experience as an audience memberSlide4

example

Bob Mullins, a local bank officer, was preparing for a speech at the Rotary Club

in Dallas

, Texas on “finding the right loan” for a diverse ethnic audience. He knew his

topic extremely

well, had put a lot of hard work into his research, and had his visual aids in order.

One of

the things he had not completely considered, however, was the

audience to which he would

be

speaking

. On the day of the event, Mr. Mullins delivered a flawless speech on car and home

loans, but

the speech was not received well.Slide5

Knowledge acquired from personal

experience is also more likely to affect our thinking and will be

retained for a longer period of time.Slide6

I. How Do I Analyze My Audience?

Whenever thinking about your speech, it is always a good idea to begin with a

thorough awareness

of your audience and the many factors comprising that audience

.

In

speech communication

we simply call this “doing an audience analysis

.”

An

audience analysis is

when

you

consider all of the pertinent elements defining the makeup and characteristics of your

audience .

There are many elements to consider, too, such as: age, gender, education, occupation, language

, ethnicity

, culture, background knowledge, needs and interests, and previously held attitudes, beliefs

, and

values

.

it does help you get a good

general understanding

of the demographics shaping up whom, precisely, you will be addressingSlide7

From the Greek affix demo (of the people) we come to understand that demographics

are

detailed

accounts of human population

characteristics

These accounts are usually rendered

as statistical

population

segments .

Demographics are widely used by advertising and public

relations professionals

to analyze specific audiences so that their products or ideas will carry influenceSlide8

How do I go about analyzing my

particular audience?

(1) audience analysis

by direct observation.

(2) audience analysis by

inference.

(3) audience analysis through

data sampling

.Slide9

Audience Analysis by Direct Observation

Audience analysis by direct observation, or direct experience, is, by far, the most simple of

the three

paradigms for “getting the feel” of a particular

audience,

It is a form of

qualitative

data

gathering.

We

perceive it through one or more of our five natural senses—hearing,

seeing, touching,

tasting, and smelling

.

Knowledge acquired

from personal

experience is also more likely to affect our thinking and will be retained for a

longer period

of time

.

For this method of observation you have to examine

the broad

composition of

your audience working in its natural state.Slide10

One excellent way to become informed about your audience is to ask them about

themselves. In

its most basic form, this is

data collection

.

In the classroom situation, you should have

had ample

time to get to know your fellow classmates and become familiar with who they are on

a personal level.

Through class

conversations

your unmonitored small-group

conversations before

and after

class

you will be able to get to know and appreciate each class member

as both

a human being and an audience member

.

You will come to understand what interests them

, convinces

them, or even makes them laugh.Slide11

Do

not discount even a simple form of data

collection such

as distributing a three- or four-item questionnaire before

class.Slide12

Unacquainted-audience presentations

Unacquainted-audience

presentations are

speeches

where

you

are completely unfamiliar with the audience and its

demographics .

In these cases, it is

always best

to try and find some time to sit down and talk with someone you

trust

who might be familiar with the given

audience .Slide13

Who is it that

I am going to be

talking to?Slide14

What, exactly,

makes them,

as listeners,

tick?Slide15

You see, not understanding the basic

demographic

characteristics of an audience, or further

, that

audience’s beliefs, values, or attitudes about a given topic, makes your presentation

goals haphazard

, at

best .

Look around the room at the people who will be listening to your speech

. What

types of gender, age, ethnicity, and educational-level

characteristics

will you be

appealing to

? What expectations does your audience have for your presentation

?

These are all

important questions

you should be asking yourself before you begin doing your research and drafting

your outline

. Who is it that I am going to be talking to? What, exactly, makes them, as listeners, tick?Slide16

Audience Analysis by Inference

Audience analysis by inference is a form of critical thinking known as

inductive reasoning, and another form

of

qualitative data gathering.

An

inference is when you

make a reasoned tentative conclusion or

logical judgment on the basis of available evidence .

It is best used when you can identify patterns in your evidence that indicate something is expected to happen again or should hold true based upon previous experiences.

We make inferences—or reasonable assumptions—all the time.

For example, when we hear someone speaking Arabic, we infer that they are from the Middle East.

When we see this person carrying a copy of

The Quran, we infer that they are also a follower of

the Muslim faith.Slide17

Audience Analysis by Data Sampling

Audience analysis by

data sampling uses statistical evidence to quantify and clarify the characteristics of you

These characteristics are also known as

variables, and are

assigned a numerical value so we can systematically collect and classify them .

They are reported as statistics, also known as

quantitative analysis or quantitative data collection.

Audience analysis by data sampling requires you to survey your audience before you give your speechSlide18

The Basic Questionnaire

Three primary type of survey methods :

The first type of survey method you should know about is the

basic questionnaire,

which is a

series of questions advanced to produce demographic and attitudinal data from your audienceSlide19

You can easily gather information from your

audience, using questions similar to these below:

My academic level in college:

freshman

sophomore

junior

senior

My age is:

less than 18 years of age

between 18-21 years of age

between 21-25 years of age

over 25 years of age

My marital status is:

single

married

divorced/separated

widowed

I currently have:

no children

1 child

2 children

3 or more children

I can best be classified as being:

Caucasian

Black or African American

Hispanic

of Asian descent

otherSlide20

Audience members should not be required to identify themselves by name on the basic questionnaire.

Anonymous questionnaires are more likely to produce truthful information

Remember, all you are looking for is a general read of your audience, you should not be looking for specific information

about any respondent concerning your questionnaire in particular .Slide21

For gather basic demographic data easily, we need to adjust our questions a bit more tightly, or ask more focused questions, in order to understand the audience’s “predispositions” to think or act in certain ways .

For example, an attitudinal extension on the basic questionnaire might ask some of the following questions:Slide22

I regard myself as a:conservativeliberalsocialist

independent

I believe that:

there is a God

there is not a God

there might be a God, but I’m unsure

none of the above

I believe that abortion is: wrong, and should be illegal wrong, but should remain legal okay, but should be illegal okay, and should remain legal none of the above

These questions probe more deeply into the psyche of your audience members, and will help you see where they stand on certain issues.Slide23

Value Hierarchy by Ordered Categories

The way to determine a person’s value hierarchy is to use the ordered categories sampling method Slide24

A value hierarchy is a

person’s value structure placed in relationship to a given

value set.

The way to determine a person’s value hierarchy is to use the ordered categories sampling method.

In

ordered categories,

the surveyor lists a number of values on a piece of paper,

and asks the respondent to order them on another piece of paper, according to their importance to the respondent .Slide25

What occurs is that the respondent takes a series of values and, in turn, develops them into a concrete self-ordered list.

Each response is different, but when analyzed by the speaker, common themes will present themselves in the overall data.

Accordingly, the speaker can then identify with those common value themes.Slide26

example below for a given speech on “homeland security initiatives:”

Targeted Value Set

Life

Liberty

Safety

Freedom

Justice

Family

Faith

Patriotism

Democracy

Ordered Value Set

1. Freedom

2. Democracy

3. Liberty

4. Safety

5. JusticeSlide27

Likert-type Testing of Attitudes

The final method of assessing your audience’s attitudes deals with

Likert

-type testing.

Likert

-type testing is when you

make a statement, and ask the respondent to gauge the depth of their

sentiments toward that statement either positively, negatively, or neutrally .

Typically, each scale will have 5 weighted response categories, being +2, +1, 0, -1, and -2.

What the

Likert

-type test does, that other tests do not do, is measure the extent to which attitudes are held .Slide28

See how the Likert-type test does this in the speech example on “unsolicited email”Slide29

UNSOLICITED email

Strongly agree

Agree

Neither agree

nor disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

1.Unsolicited mail should be illegal

1

2

3

4

5

2

. Making unsolicited email illegal would be fundamentally unfair to businesses

1

2

3

4

5

3. Making unsolicited email illegal would be a violation of the First Amendment (Free Speech)

1

2

3

4

5

4

. I usually delete unsolicited email

before ever opening it

1

2

3

4

5

5.

I sometimes open unsolicited email when I am bored

1

2

3

4

5Slide30

...are your audience members

literally “speech captives” who

have somehow been socially or

systematically coerced into hearing you?Slide31

II. The “Five Layers” of Audience Analysis

No matter which of the above inquiry methods you choose to do your audience analysis, you will, at some point, need to direct your attention to the five “layers” of audience analysis.

The five layers through which you will learn to better appreciate your audience .Slide32

Layer 1: The Situational Analysis

The

situational audience analysis layer

considers the situation for which your audience is gathered.

This layer is primarily concerned with why your audience is assembled in the first place.

Are they willingly gathered to hear you speak? Have your audience members paid to hear you?

Or, are your audience members literally “speech captives” who have somehow been socially or systematically coerced into hearing you?Slide33

Many audiences are considered

captive audiences in that they

have no real choice regarding the

matter of hearing a given speech.

In general, these are some of the most difficult audiences to address because these members are being forced to listen to a message and do not have the full exercise of their own free willSlide34

The voluntary audience situation, in stark contrast, is completely different. A

voluntary audience

is

willingly assembled to listen to a given message.

As a rule, these audiences are much easier to address because they are interested in hearing the speech at hand.

Modern communication researchers have found that captive audiences are more heterogeneous and that voluntary audiences are more homogeneous.

when captive audiences are gathered, the audience is typically

heterogeneous or

characterized by many demographic differences among

individuals.

On the other hand, when voluntary audiences assemble, by and large, they are populated by

homogeneous groupings, or, audiences which are c

haracterized more by their

demographic similarities than their differences.Slide35

Layer 2: The Demographic Analysis

There are two steps in doing an accurate demographic analysis:

(1)the gathering of the demographic data

(2) the interpretation of this demographic data.

This information is already available in a database and is made available to the speaker.

Some noteworthy speakers even have “scouts” who do demographic reconnaissance on an audience prior to a speaking event, and make

ad hoc interpretations on

that audience based upon key visual cues.Slide36

Example

For example, congress persons and senators frequently make public appearances where they use stock speeches to appeal to certain audiences with specific demographic uniqueness.

In order to know what type of audience he or she will be addressing, these politicians dispatch staff aides to an event to see how many persons of color, hecklers, and supporters will be in attendance. Slide37

Layer 3: Psychological Description: On Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values

Unless your selected speech topic is a complete mystery to your audience, your listeners will already hold “attitudes, beliefs, and values” toward the ideas you will inevitably present.

As a result, it is always important to know where your audience stands on the issues you plan to address ahead of time.

The best way to accomplish this is to sample your audience with a quick questionnaire or survey prior to the event.

This is known as the third layer of audience

analysis,or

psychological description. Slide38

There are three things you seek to identify when performing a description : the audience’s

(1) attitudes

(2) beliefs

(3) values.

They are your calculated allies in understanding how your audience thinks.Slide39

1. Attitudes

What exactly is an attitude?

an

attitude is

a learned disposition to respond in a

consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a person, an object, an idea, or an event. Slide40

You are very likely to see an attitude present itself when someone says that they are “pro” or “anti” something.

But, above all else, attitudes are

learned and

not necessarily

enduring.

Attitudes can change, and sometimes do, whereas beliefs and values do not shift as easily.Slide41

Let’s examine a sample list of attitudes below:

Pro-war

Anti-war

Pro-diversity

Anti-affirmative action

Anti-slavery

Pro-life

Pro-choice

Pro-gaming

Anti-gambling

Pro-business

Anti-government

Anti-drugs

Anti-discrimination

Pro-capital punishment

Anti-capital punishment

These are just a small range of issues that one can either be “for” or “against.” And, while we are simplifying the social scientific idea of an

attitude considerably here,Slide42

2. Beliefs

Beliefs are

principles.

Beliefs are more durable than attitudes because beliefs are hinged to ideals and not issues.

For example, you may believe in the principle: “what goes around comes around.”If you do, you believe in the notion of

karma.

You may not engage in unethical or negative behavior because you believe that it will “come back” to you. Likewise, you may try to exude behaviors that are ethical and positive because you wish for this behavior to return, in kind.Slide43

Let’s now turn to examine some sample beliefs:

The world was created by God. -

Evolution is fact, not fiction.

Marijuana is an addictive gateway drug.

- Marijuana is neither addictive nor harmful.

Ghosts are all around us.

- Ghosts are products of our imagination.

Smoking causes cancer

. - Smoking does not cause cancer.

Anyone can acquire HIV

. - Only high-risk groups acquire HIV.Slide44

3. Values

A

value,

is

a guiding belief that regulates our attitudes.

Values are the core principles driving our attitudes. If you probe into someone’s attitudes and beliefs deep enough, you will inevitably find an underlying value.

Importantly, you should also know that we structure our values in accordance to our own

value hierarchy, or

mental schema of values placed in order

of their relative individual importance.

Each of us has our own values that we subscribe to and a value hierarchy that we use to navigate the issues of the world.

Truth be known, we really aren’t even aware that we have a value hierarchy until some of our values come in direct conflict with each other. Then, we have to negotiate something called

cognitive dissonance, or

the mental stress

caused by the choice we are forced to make between two considerable alternatives.Slide45

Let’s look at some basic values common to people around the world:

Accomplishment

Advancement

Adventure

Aesthetics

Affiliation

Appearance

Authority

Broadminded

Community

Competency

Competition

Cooperation

Creativity

Economic Return

Education

Learning

Family

Fast Pace

Flexibility

Freedom

Friendship

Health

Helping others

Honesty

Independence

Influence

Integrity

Intellectual stimulation

Intellectual status

Leadership

Leisure

Loyalty

Management

Material Status

Moral fulfillment

Order

Peace

Physical work

Pleasure

Power

Prestige

Recognition

Security

Self-expression

Travel

Teamwork

Variety

WisdomSlide46

Layer 4: Multicultural Audience Analysis

As a speaker, you need to recognize that the perspective you have on any given topic may not necessarily be shared by all of the members of your audience.

Therefore, it is imperative that you become a culturally effective speaker.

Culturally effective speakers

develop the capacity

to appreciate other cultures and acquire the necessary skills to speak effectively to people with diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Keep these issues ever-present in your mind

Language

Cognition

EthnocentricitySlide47

Values differ greatly

Not only do individuals have value systems of their own, but societies promote value systems, as well.

Communication styles differ greatly: While you are trying to balance these language, cognition, cultural, and value issues, you should also recognize that some cultures prefer a more animated delivery style than do others.Slide48

Audience Analysis and the Multicultural Audience

Today’s speakers face many cultural challenges. These challenges include ethnocentrism, stereotyping, verbal and nonverbal misinterpretations, differences in information processing, and translation difficulties.

Ideally, it would be wonderful to be able to master every culture and language, but we cannot be superhuman. Still, there are some universal cultural attributes you can identify through audience analysis that will give you a basic understanding about your multicultural audience.

Knowing that culture does play a major role in interactions between you and your audience is a good step in becoming an effective communicator.Slide49

There are three

areas of cultural orientation

(1)

cognitive styles:

how we organize and process

information

(2)

decision-making: what we accept as evidence

(3) communication patterns:

how we communicate verbally and nonverbally.Slide50

1. Cognitive Styles

The word cognitive means thought. So, “cognitive styles” refers to thought patterns.

Studies of cognitive styles suggest that people fall into

open-minded and closed-minded categories .

The open-minded person seeks out information before making a decision.

The closed-minded person has tunnel-vision—he or she sees only a narrow range of data and ignores the rest .Slide51

Another aspect of cognitive styles is how people process information. We divide such processing into

associative and abstractive characteristics.

And a third cognitive process is how we actually link information in a chain to come to a conclusion or decision.

Generally, there are two types of thinking: linear and systemic.

Linear thinking means that we process information by creating an associative link, that is, we first begin with

A, then go to B, then to C, and so on, until we have created a chain of reason in

order to come to a conclusion.Slide52

2. Decision-making

Members of different cultures arrive at decision-making in different ways.

These ways can be described as faith, fact, and feeling.

The person who acts on the basis of faith is using a belief system which can be a religion or political ideology.

Presenting facts in your speech that do not reflect religious or political beliefs can be a waste of time. His or her faith operates independently from facts.

People who believe in feelings are the most common throughout the world.Slide53

3. Communication Patterns

Each culture has a system for communicating. Hall has indicated that these systems can fall into two categories: low-contextual communication and high-contextual communication .

Cultures that express themselves in a high-context communication system emphasize how intention or meaning can best be conveyed through the context and the nonverbal channels of the verbal message .

The high-context system is also known as an indirect verbal style, or indirect communication, verbal statements tend to camouflage the speaker’s actual intentions and are carried out in a softer tone of voice .

Verbal CommunicationSlide54

low context communication system, where exchange of facts and information is stressed .

Information is given primarily in words and meaning is best expressed explicitly

The low context system is also known as a direct verbal style, or direct communication, verbal statements tend to reveal the speaker’s intentions with clarity and are enunciated with a forthright tone of voice.

low-context communication (LCC) refers to communication patterns of direct verbal orientation: straight talk, nonverbal immediacy, and sender-oriented values.Slide55

In the LCC system, the speaker is expected to be responsible for constructing a clear, persuasive message that the listener can decode easily.

high-context communication (HCC) refers to communication patterns of indirect verbal orientation: self-humbling talk, nonverbal subtleties, silence, and interpreter-sensitive values

In the HCC system, the listener or interpreter of the message is expected to “read between the lines,” to accurately infer the implicit intent of the verbal message, and to decode the nonverbal subtleties that accompany the verbal message.Slide56

Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is a powerful form of human expression. It is everywhere. People all over the world use their hands, heads, and bodies to communicate expressively.

Nonverbal messages can express what verbal messages cannot express and are assumed to be more truthful than verbal messages.

Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors include: eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, posture and body orientation, proximity,

paralinguistics

, and humor.

Eye contact is an important channel of communication. It signals interest in others and for

some,eye

contact with your audience increases the speaker’s credibility.Slide57

Layer 5: “Topic Interest” and “Prior Knowledge” Analysis

Finally, you want to query your audience for their interest in, and prior knowledge of, your topic. If the goal of your speech is to deliver a unique and stirring presentation.

It would make perfect sense to know ahead of time if your audience:

(1) is interested in what you have to say, and (2) has any prior knowledge regarding your topic.Slide58

It stands to reason that you do not want to give a boring or trite speech.

your job here is to “test” your topic by sampling your audience for their topic interest and topic knowledge

topic interest is

the significance of the topic to a

given audience; oftentimes related precisely to the uniqueness of a speaker’s topic.

Topic knowledge is

the general amount of information that the audience possesses on a given topicSlide59

Unlike multicultural audience analysis, evaluating your audience’s topic interest and topic knowledge is a fairly simple task. There are two ways to go about doing this.

(1) through informal question and answer dialogue in class.

(2) more formally through an actual survey.Slide60

Again, do not underestimate the power of asking your audience whether or not your topic actually interests them.

If you find that many people are not interested in your topic, or already know a lot about it, you have just saved yourself from a potentially mind-numbing exercise.